Those Who Stand Long
by CloudyDream
Summary: When the Lord of Winterfell dies childless, Rhaegar Targaryen decides to let the last surviving Starks return to Westeros, after thirteen years spent in exile following a failed rebellion. To Eddard Stark and his wife, it's a decade-long dream come true. To their children, born and raised in the Free Cities, it's a brave new world.
1. Those Who Stand Long

**Note:** This is so terribly long, I apologize in advance; I really couldn't make it work as a chaptered story. Still, it _is_ split into parts, if it helps.

* * *

**Those Who Stand Long**

* * *

_There's a feeling I get  
when I look to the West,  
and my spirit is crying  
for leaving…_

**I. In which it's just another day in Braavos  
**

The message came on a night of wind and rain in Braavos, and changed her life forever.

Sansa would remember that day with vivid clarity for the years to come, the pretty woollen dress she had worn, the pea soup they had for dinner, the scent of the peach-flavoured candles and the way the light played on the white walls of their house.

It had started as an ordinary day, in Sansa's own opinion. Her mother disagreed, as Sansa'd had her first woman's blood just the night before, and she had spent the whole morning embracing her daughter tightly and telling tales of her own flowering – as they called it in her sunset kingdoms. _Our sunset kingdoms, I suppose_.

Sansa had been thoroughly embarrassed after that, quite sick of those womanly mysteries, and she had seized the rare occasion of her mother's sharing mood to inquire some more on Westeros, and soon Arya and Bran had joined in as well. Soon she had learned more on marriage and children than she had ever wished to – _But you needn't worry, dear, girls do flower much later in Westeros, no one would think you should marry for years yet_ – some things she had never known – _in Dorne they would eat every sort of animals, even snakes_ – and some other that made Arya laugh in disbelief – _the Wall is truly seven hundred feet tall, ask you Father, he has seen it_.

The sky was grey outside but there was no rain yet, and Sansa had offered to go to the market to walk some and clear you head.

"Thank you," her mother had said, "Robb, you go with her as well. A young woman should never be left unattended."

Sansa had heard, A young lady of noble birth, instead, the words her mother had meant and not said hanging in the air between them, but Robb had laughed, and she allowed herself to roll her eyes and smile.

"Isn't not odd, Mother, how you didn't mind it until yesterday?"

Her mother's only answer had been to remind her to stop by the sept and light a candle to the Mother, and Robb had laughed once again.

"I think she might have been crying, some." He told her the moment the door closed behind them, and she shoved him playfully away.

"She was probably thinking she is getting old," Sansa answered lightly, although she suspected that was only half of it_. She is thinking of her own childhood, her marriage, what she has lost. Or perhaps she is thinking of the future, wondering what will be of our family when we are grown?_

She understood her parent's worries and preoccupations, her mother's concerns more than her father's, but she did not share them. How could she? Her life was the only one she had ever known and, while she resented her Mother and Father for their unwillingness to speak of their past, she knew it was for the best. _You cannot miss a life that you don't know_.

And, besides, she wasn't sure she would have enjoyed living in the Seven Kingdoms more than she liked the Free Cities. She had been too young to remember Tyrosh as anything more than a floating, colourful dream, and she had fond memories of the short time they had spent in Myr, but Sansa liked Braavos the best of them all.

She liked the channels and the fishmarket and living under the shadow of the Titan, and she loved feeling the pride of living in the greatest city of the world. She liked the climate as well; the crisp winds and fresh rains that so reminded her father of his home in the North. It snowed in Braavos sometimes, and Sansa loved the snow as well. It would snow much more in the winter, she knew, though Essos didn't feel the turning of the seasons as harshly as Westeros did. _There are some places in the North where there is always snow_, her father told her once, and Sansa remembered how her eyes had gone wide in wonder.

But Sansa loved wandering around Braavos more than anything, because there were no Titan and no wind in the room she shared with Arya, and the channels and the snow wouldn't feel the same from inside. If she had been born in Westeros, Sansa knew, she would never have been allowed to go around by herself. _A lady should never be left unattended_ indeed, she had thought, and started walking faster and faster, until she almost stumbled on Lacretia and her tray of trinkets. She had bought the scented candles as an apology, and they had smelled wonderful in the shadows of the sept.

"Do you believe, Robb?" She had moved a lock of hair away from her forehead, willing it to _stay put,_ for once. "In the gods?"

"Which ones?" Her brother had answered back, smirking.

It was true. Sansa's family had two different faiths, her mother's seven-but-one, and her father's faceless northern gods, but it wasn't unusual, not in Braavos. Her father talked about his gods often, almost as often as he talked about the beauties of the North, and even mentioned them every time he stubbornly refused to talk about anything else from his past, of the war he'd lost and why they'd had to leave. _Because the gods willed so_, he said, and that was all.

"The Seven, I suppose." She did not mind not living in Westeros, but a god who _willed_ to make her father unhappy was no god Sansa would respect.

"I don't know," Robb's voice had been slow and soft, and Sansa had closed her eyes, head back, dreaming. She so loved the sept. "There must be gods, somewhere. I don't think they care about us, though. Why should them?"

Sansa had looked around for the small flint, and thrown it. "Be careful you don't think too much, Robb. Your brain might get numb."

And they had left the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea laughing and joking, never imagining it would be the last time.

**II. The one with the tall, dark stranger  
**

The messenger came with the dark, the way most messenger usually do, knocking at their door during dinner. Sansa's sibling would not get a clear look to his face for three days, and they spent a sleepless night interrogating their sister without mercy on the strange man and the letter he had bought. To her brothers and sister, Sansa described him as tall and raven-haired, with bright blue eyes and leather clothes. She would never admit how, in first seeing him, she thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

Sansa went to the door like she usually did, ready to scowl to whomever it was. It might have been her Master Grucco, she thought, here to tell Robb he would need him on the morrow, or one of the seamstresses her mother and Sansa sometimes worked for, asking for a late help. It might even have been Solana asking to borrow some salt, but she never would have expected it to be a man in Westerosi garbs, a sword on his belt.

He was young and handsome, and looked somewhat startled to see her as she was to see him. She barely repressed a fit of annoyance at that – it was _her_ house, after all – and waited for him to speak.

When he did, it was in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms, in a laboured manner she had never heard before.

"Ah – I apologize," the man began, and she knew he had rehearsed this before. "I am looking for Eddard Stark."

Sansa nodded. "Stay here," she said, hating the way the words felt rusted in her tongue. She had known her father's name was _Stark_, of course, in some remote corner of her mind, but she had never minded because no one else did, as seldom as they used it. Sansa herself could not remember the last time she had even heard the name spoken aloud before, and wondered if her man knew her father.

"Stark," she whispered, testing the way the word rolled on her tongue. _It does fit Father rather well_.

Sansa closed behind her and blinked upon glancing at the corner of the common room where the table was. She made her way to where her father was sit and no one did notice her at first, not really paying attention, oblivious to the… incredible… _something_, waiting outside the door. She savoured the sensation of knowing when the others didn't, and smiled through all her nervousness.

"What was it, Sansa?" Her father asked, half distracted. "Does Mistress Solana need something again?"

She moved in closer, half speaking, half whispering. Her father would hear her clearly, and so would everyone else if they were silent, but they weren't.

"There is a man at the door," she said. "Westerosi. Asking for Eddard Stark."

She thought her father might have paled at that, just a little, and she felt even more nervous. He almost looked scared, and Sansa could not remember the last time she had seen her father scared of anything, if she ever had.

"Cat," he called, in the same voice Sansa had used. "Come to the door."

Then he looked at her, and frowned. "Sansa, love," he added, in a gentler tone. "Don't say anything to your brothers, for now."

She didn't, and when Arya asked who was at the door she said it was just someone looking for Father, and she talked to Bran about the ships she'd seen that day at the harbor and laughed at Robb's jests the harder she could, the continuous chattering covering any sounds that might have come from outside. She kept it up until her mother came back inside, her face pale and her mouth tight, asking them to _go into the bedroom and keep quiet, your father and I have something to discuss_, and Sansa ignored Arya's betrayed look and glared at Bran to keep his mouth shout, carrying baby Rickon into the girls' bedroom.

_Not to be the girl's room for much longer_, Sansa remembered, gloomy. Rickon was getting too big to sleep in their parents' bed, Mother had deliberated a fortnight prior, and she would have him move into her daughters' room soon. Sansa was not looking forward to sleeping with her clingy brother, but still she much preferred it to switching places with Bran and Robb, who did not even have a real bedroom.

Her siblings followed her into the room, she and Rickon on a bed, Bran and Arya on the other, and Robb taking care to close the door as quietly as possible before sliding down to the floor.

"Let's not make a sound," he said, his voice low. "I want to hear what they're saying."

They all wanted to but, despite the thin walls, they could not hear a thing.

"They must be whispering," Arya complained. "Sansa, who was at the door? Truly."

"Some man looking for Father."

Arya threw her a pillow at that, frowning.

"Truly!" Sansa said, making an effort not to make too much noise. "A man from Westeros."

Her sister's eyes went as wide as cups at that, and she threw another pillow. "Why, you _traitor_, you couldn't tell that before?"

"Shut up, Arya." Robb whispered. And then, to Sansa. "She's right, sister. Why didn't you?"

"Father told me not to," she answered, with all the dignity she could muster. "And you can see yourself why. It would have been awful, having Arya shouting all over our common room."

Robb smiled at her answer, and Arya's cheeks went red.

"And still you are telling us now."

Her brother laughed again, and soon Sansa joined in as well. It was almost uncanny, the ability Arya had to make her lose her patience every time she tried.

"Do you think that man is a friend of Father's?" Bran spoke up for the first time, his voice almost reverential, sounding as impressed as a boy of six years could be.

"I don't know," Robb answered slowly. "He might be."

All of them knew, of course, that Father was some sort of exiled knight from Westeros. Sansa remembered one day, in Myr, when Mother had said that they'd had to leave after losing a war, and how silly that had sounded to her. _Father had won a war last year and we left Tyrosh all the same_, she had told Robb, complaining about the absurdity of adults. _And he lost another war the year before that, but we stayed right there_.

And Robb had explained it to her, same as she and Robb had done with Arya later on, same as they all had told Bran when he'd been old enough. There were only nobles and smallfolk in Westeros, and smallfolk couldn't hold a spear or fight with a sword, and did not know letters and sums the way Father did, so he must be a knight. Sansa had not seen the problem until Robb had added, in an oddly adult voice, that knight in Westeros were all sword and were not supposed to fight with each other, and when someone went to war and lost, they got killed or exiled.

_And what if they win?_ Sansa remembered asking. _If they win_, Robb had explained, _it's the people fighting for the other side who get exiled_.

"Sansa."

It was Bran calling her, and Sansa realized with a wince that she had been on the verge of falling asleep, her hands grasping the board of the bed, head resting on her arms, Rickon still at her side.

"Sansa, Rickon's starting to cry!"

"Oh."

She moved to take her brother in her hands again, moving him some, humming a song she had learnt in the sept. Rickon was two now and seldom cried anymore, when he did it the best way to calm him down was to distract him, spinning him around the room, playing and making faces. She had neither the time nor the will tonight.

"I am going to call Mother," she announced, moving towards the door and ignoring Arya's protests. She was curious, as well.

Her mother and father were still with the handsome stranger, sitting by the fireplace and talking quietly about something that had left a strange expression on her father's face. He looked nervous and… _wistful_? She quickly cleared her throat, before Father raised his head and saw her standing there.

"Mother," she began quickly. "Rickon needs you in the other room, please."

She murmured something to the stranger, likely excusing herself, and exited the room quickly, closing the door behind her before Sansa had even the possibility to move. Standing in the middle of the room, faced with the choice between staying and running after her mother like a chicken with her mother hen, Sansa made her way to the fireplace.

"I do not believe I introduced myself," the man began, in that affected voice of his. "I am Ser Renly Baratheon, of Storm's End."

Sansa tilted her head, trying to remember. She had heard the name Baratheon before, in some of the histories of the Seven Kingdoms her mother and father had wanted her to learn, but she had never heard of Ser Renly before. She idly wondered if she was supposed to know his name, before deciding that she probably was not.

"I am Sansa," she answered, and the knight chuckled.

"I believe I was told this, yes. And how old are you, Sansa?"

She turned her head to look at her father, trying to determine whether he wanted her to answer and chat with the Westerosi knight or not, but he wasn't looking at her, his face now carefully blank, and Sansa took it to mean he would not mind her answering.

"I will be eleven soon," she said, and Ser Renly laughed.

"Are you in such a hurry to grow up, Lady Sansa?" His eyes were full of mirth, and he was looking at her with his full attention, but Sansa faltered. _Lady_?

"She is simply looking forward to her name day, ser." Her father spoke for her, perhaps sensing her hesitation, and Sansa was glad. Still, she could not help but notice how her father sounded more like Ser Renly than he ever had, his accent thicker than she'd ever heard it. He was doing it on purpose, she was sure of it. _But why?_

"But of course," Ser Renly laughed yet once again, and Sansa decided to speak up before he asked her anything else. She wouldn't know how to answer, and she so hated not knowing.

"I believe I will be going to bed," she said, looking at her father. He gave her a subtle nod, and smiled. "Good night, Ser Renly."

And she moved towards her bedroom door, not quite running, but fast enough. Her mother was culling a sleepy Rickon, and both her and her siblings turned towards her, Robb with a finger on his lips. _Do not say anything when Mother's here_, he meant, and Sansa almost rolled her eyes. _Of course_.

"Sansa, there you are," Mother said. "You all should go to sleep, we will talk in the morning."

Arya, who had no qualms about rolling her eyes, did just that. "_Where_, mother? Surely Robb and Bran can't sleep on the floor?"

Robb and Bran slept on a mattress in a secluded corner of the common room, and Sansa had noticed how Ser Renly had been seated as so to turn his back to the thick woollen curtains that separated the bedding from the main part of the room. Her parents were proud people, and Father would never want a foreign to mind their business.

Mother took a breath. "You girls and Rickon will go to sleep in mine and your father's room tonight. I promise you, we will talk tomorrow."

The room had not yet closed behind her shoulders when Arya and Bran started whispering furiously. Sansa shared a smile with her older brother, and prepared herself for a long night of speculations.

**III. The history of a life  
**

The truth was even more unbelievable than her wildest dreams.

Father had come into the room with the lights of the dawn, to find none of his children sleeping in bed, but rather dozing off in different parts of the room. Sansa vaguely remembered Robb jumping to his feet at the sound of the door opening, asking muffled questions, and Father shaking his head._ I only will explain this once_, she thought he had said, and then she fell asleep once again.

She woke to the feel of sunshine beating on her face and the smell of apples in the air.

"Well, you took your time."

It was Arya, standing next to her bed, looking rested and fresh. Sansa closed her eyes again.

"Sansa. You slept through the midday meal."

That was her father's voice, and she sat down on the bed, blinking. "Father… why is you here?"

He frowned, then laughed, and Sansa felt herself blushing. She usually tried hard not to be rude – she was no match for Arya, and she knew it – but having her father home in the middle of the day _was_ a rather unusual occurrence.

Then she remembered. The knight from Westeros, Ser Renly, who had been so good-locking and laughed so much, and had made her father's face go pale. The night she and Arya and Robb and Bran had spent exchanging murmured conjectures, until they'd fallen asleep. And Mother, who said, _we will talk on the morrow_.

Curiosity went through her body like a bolt, and suddenly she wasn't tired anymore.

Mother and Father waited with the others at the table, weary and uneasy, both looking as though they had aged five years in one night.

"Ser Renly was so kind as to bring me a personal message," Father began, his eyes fixed on Mother's. "It seems as though my brother, Benjen Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, died a fortnight ago in a riding incident." He took a deep breath. "And now I am being recalled home."

It took a while for Sansa to make sense of what Father had said, and she could see that it was the same for the others, as well. She had known that the rulers of the North were called Stark – she _was_ well versed in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, it was recent facts she knew nothing about – but she had never given it much weight. People often had the same name, like old Jenna Verlas and the old Sealord Tebano, and her father used his name so rarely that she often forgotten about. She surely had never connected the two and, it seemed, neither had Robb.

Father explained it all, talking about his childhood in Winterfell, his father and brothers and sister, telling things he never had said before. They could ask questions and, for the first time, they would get answer.

Robb made Father smile. "I thought you were a knight," he said. "Is a lord different than a knight?"

Even Mother had laughed at that, and she suddenly was young and beautiful again. "You can only be born a lord, but everyone can be a knight. Some are one, some the other, and some are both."

Then Robb had looked at Father with widened eyes and asked if he would become a lord, too, and Father was serious again.

"Yes," he said, slowly, as if he never had truly considered the idea before.

Father spoke some more, about Robert's Rebellion and how they had fought and lost, and how Mother and Father had been married in wartime and how Robb had been born in a castle on the waters. Sansa had almost wanted to ask how could men be so stupid, waging a war because of a woman, but she knew she would have saddened her father, and kept it to herself instead.

It was only later than he talked about the Mad King and what he did to Father's family, and Sansa felt so ashamed of herself for having even thought of the question, and so glad she hadn't asked.

"If the Prince was so in love with your sister, how come she couldn't convince him not to exile you?" That was Arya, of course, as bold and blatant as ever. "It was his family's fault anyway."

But Father had not liked that. "When you get to Westeros, Arya, you must never speak of the Prince this way. It's treason."

The king had wanted him dead, Father said, and the Prince was the one who made him change his mind to exile. Father's sister had died in childbirth before the end of the war, and it had been Arya's turn to feel bad for asking a question after that.

There was, however, something in Father's words that nagged Sansa, an indefinite _something_ she could not quite point out. It was only when it was Mother who started to speak, about the Mad King and the Prince Regent and the current situation in the Seven Kingdoms, about marriages and allies and foes, that Sansa finally realized what the problem was.

"Father," she said, ignoring the way her head was spinning, and how she had likely just interrupted her mother but couldn't be sure because all she could hear was the rush of her own blood. "Are we all going to Westeros?"

And as he opened her mouth to answer Sansa spoke again, feeling that perhaps she had not been clear enough.

"Father. Do we _have_ to?"

* * *

_In my thoughts I have seen  
rings of smoke through the trees,  
and the voices of those who stand looking_

**IV. Nature and Nurture clash. Or, the one in which Sansa is still a brat**

Sansa was, for the first time in her life, completely conscious of having acted selfishly, and still did not mind it at all. She had been right in complaining, she maintained. It was a pity no one in her family seemed to agree.

They would leave Braavos in a fortnight, Mother had said, explaining how Father's orders said he had to leave as soon as he could, how the North was likely in dire need of a ruler. She had stated to sound almost pleading towards the end, or as pleading as she could be, asking Sansa to please see reason, saying she could not bear to see her unhappy, and yet Sansa had refused to listen.

Father had talked to her as well, and that had ended even worse. This time, however, it hadn't been on purpose.

"Do not say that you have to, Father. You don't. It's your choice."

"It is an order from the Prince, Sansa," he had answered, so calm and sure in his convictions, and that she could not understand.

She had told him as much, truly trying to understand. How could he still feel ties to the man who had exiled him from his own home? _Your Prince lost the right to order you around when he sent you away_, she had said, wishing her father could understand. It was so clear to Sansa, and yet Father had shaken his head and started speaking of a duty to his people, the honor of his House and the name of the Starks.

_You are a Stark as well, Sansa, dearie. It's is who we are_. He had sounded so confident, so serene, and she had hated it. She had wanted to shatter his conviction, to make him feel as bad as she herself felt, and she did.

"No, I'm not," she'd said. "I don't know a thing about being a Stark. Wasn't that what you wanted, when you raised us?"

She had said as much, seen the hurt in her father's eyes, and known that yes, she was right and yes, he blamed himself for that. And then she had started crying, like a little girl, feeling guilty and ashamed of herself.

They talked some more the following day, Father coming into her room to hug her as if she were a silly girl not even Bran's age, but she had liked it all the same. She'd said she was sorry, and so had done he.

"But do you, truly?" She had begun, in what she knew to be the last time. There was no convincing Eddard Stark, Sansa knew it, but she had to try all the same. She wanted to know why. "Are you – are you unhappy with this life, father? With us?" And then she had closed her eyes, and prayed all the gods she had ever heard of, hoping she was wrong.

She had opened her eyes to find Father staring at her. "I will never be unhappy with you," he had whispered, his breath warm and spicy on Sansa's face. "You and your brother are what kept our family together, never forget that. We have a very good life, Sansa, considering how it started. But – " and there he'd embraced her once again, his hands around her arms and her neck on his shoulder. "But, this is not the life I chose. I miss my home."

And she had wanted to say, _You did not choose that other life either, you were born into it_, but she didn't, knowing in that moment that her father loved his North and the idea of his House more than she had ever loved Braavos, and wishing with all herself that she would come to love it even half as much as her father did.

That was not to say that she stopped, for she did not. She stopped complaining and started brooding, glaring to Mother and Father every once in a while. It was petty, and she knew it, but it made her feel as though she were _doing_ something, even though she clearly was not.

Bran and Arya thought her mad, Sansa knew, for acting like she was doing. They counted down the days until their departure, talking about the places they would go and the people they would see. They listened to Mother explaining all the names of the lords and ladies of the court they were supposed to remember, following Father around to ask him every sort of questions.

Robb, for his part, was almost as loath to leave as she was. He would have it easier in Westeros, Sansa had tried to explain him, easier than she would, being a boy, and the son of a lord at that. And yet that was what seemed to worry him, being the heir to a Great House he knew almost nothing about, live in a place where young lordlings competed in tournaments for a sport, while he had not as much as ridden a horse in years.

_You will be wonderful_, Sansa told him, because he always was; wishing she could reassure herself of the same thing.

Father went with Robb to the Iron Bank the way after their conversation, while Sansa had to go to the seamstress with her mother and Arya instead. Father was selling their house, and the Bank was the fastest buyer in Braavos. They would also pay less than a regular purchaser would, and that had made Sansa frown. _Can't you wait until you find someone else?_ she had asked, and father had shaken his head. _We need the gold now_, he'd answered, and it had taken a while for Sansa to fully understand.

They did have gold, some, what Mother had managed to smuggle away from Westeros and the coins Father had scrapped together during his years fighting in the Disputed Lands, but most of it had gone into the house. Still, what they had now was surely enough to pay for transit to Westeros, and whatever they may need… or so Sansa had thought until the day Mother escorted her to Madame Dorla, who made the prettiest gowns for the Sealord's ladies and all the courtesans.

Sansa's new gown was sea green and silky, and Mother said it brought out her eyes. Arya said it was the less frippery, which she decided to take as a sign of approval.

"Is this how women in the Seven Kingdoms dress?" She asked, looking at herself in the mirror and spinning around. "I don't think I can move properly. And I will be so afraid of ruining it."

"This is how they dress in King's Landing this year, I have been told" Mother answered, smiling at her. "You look very pretty, Sansa. And do not worry, you will only need to wear it the once, on the first day in court, and we can have the others made in Braavosi style if you like it better. No one would mind."

"Am I to have more? How many?" She did not know what to expect. Sansa quite liked trying for clothes, but the close fittings made her uneasy, standing so still while Dorla's girls worked all around her.

And then she realized something else her mother had said. "Are we going to _court_?" She shared a look with Arya, who looked as surprised as she felt.

"Your father has been recalled by the Prince, dearie, he _has_ to. And you will only need two or three more new dresses, we will not be staying long."

"But do we have to go with Father, too?" It was Arya who asked the question. She seemed not to like the prospect of going to court as much as she did going to Winterfell. "I thought the Prince's family and Father did not get along."

Mother's eyes softened at that, and Sansa remembered that her family did not get along with the Prince's either.

"I promise you, Arya, Sansa, it will not be long; your father is needed in the North. We will only stay for as long as we have to, and leave as soon as we don't. And we will never, never go back unless we truly have to." Smiled. "I swear. No more King's Landing, no more Targaryes."

_I still like Braavos better_, Sansa wanted to say. But she didn't, and instead snorted a little and turned back to the mirror.

"I think we should get this gown."

"We will," Mother said. "It looks lovely on you. But you mustn't snort anymore, Sansa, it is not proper. You will have to take lessons with a septa when we go back to Westeros but, in the meanwhile, please try at least to do something about your accent. You as well, Arya."

"I don't have an accent!" Sansa spat out, indignant. _It's more of a cadence_, she thought to herself, _and I like it_. She sure liked it better than the affected, studied manned of Ser Renly's speech, the one Mother and Father had started mimicking since the news had come. _They are probably practising for Westeros_, she realized.

She liked her accent the way it was, Sansa told Father a week later, on the ship that would bring them to Pentos, and to King's Landing after that. And Father laughed and said that it did not matter, that it would be almost expected of her, a hint of foreign manners and some foreign clothes, and she needn't worry as much as her mother did.

"Try to understand how she feels, Sansa," he said, voice low. "It means so much to her."

And that was the day when Sansa realized how it must have been for Mother, sent away from her home because of a man she had only known for a month, sent to live in exile with a stranger. She stood on the deck of the ship, looking at the Titan getting smaller and smaller, and she understood that her parents must love each other a great deal.

The Titan disappeared behind the curve of the shore and Sansa found herself thinking of Westeros, of arranged marriages and family duties, of Father's sister Lyanna, and her betrothed who had started a war in her name.

_He didn't even bother to ask her, first_, she thought, and stared at the waves as the ship sailed away.

**V. In which the sun rises from the sea, and settles on the land**

Arya loved running around the ship. It was to be expected, as Arya seemed to love danger more than Sansa ever would, and climbing on the mast of the_ Sister of the wind_ was surely the most dangerous sport she could find for herself on the ship. Bran too, more often than not, and Sansa remembered how he used to climb on the roof of their home in Braavos and, she suspected, on other people's roofs as well.

She spent most of her time below deck with Robb and, sometimes, Mother and Father as well, learning as much as she could. She once asked Father why he only had been banished when half the kingdom had rebelled, and he explained that the Prince had managed to persuade his father to pardon the new Lord Baratheon, who had been following his brothers, and the elder Lords Tully and Arryn, who'd had to send their heirs to King's Landing as hostages.

"Isn't the king– " Robb started asking, then stopped. "Is the king angry, now that you have been pardoned?"

"Easy, Robb." Father smiled. "No one is going to judge you by the way you talk, not in Winterfell. And, in court, you will not need to speak at all."

"King Aerys likely has not been informed," he explained. "Since the Prince became Regent, his father does not have much saying in the affairs of the kingdom."

It made sense enough, and Sansa stopped herself from asking why they couldn't have done it sooner.

They met up with Ser Renly once again in Pentos, and Father explained that he had been sent to court has a hostage after the rebellion as well, along with Mother's younger brother Edmure. Father was rather uneasy around Ser Renly, Arya pointed out to her one evening, and Mother said that it was because Renly looked every bit like his dead brother. _You should have seen your Father's face that night, as though he had seen a ghost_. Mother added that the resemblance was likely why the Prince had sent Ser Renly to Father in the first place, a sour look on her face. Sansa had to agree with her – it sounded like a particularly cold thing to do.

The ship that waited for them in Pentos was much bigger than the _Sister_, a Westerosi ship with a Westerosi crew. The captain, a sandy-haired man from the riverlands, had bowed when they all had boarded, and Sansa had seen Father's sharp intake of breath, his face twitching in an odd way. The men all took care to act deferential, giving her way and calling her _m'lady_, and the first time it happened Sansa started snickering furiously as soon as she was sure the man could not hear her.

Mother had taken to lay out some of Sansa's favorite dresses every morning to wear on the ship and get ruined, her best clothes from Braavos that were no longer even fit to be daywear for the daughter of a lord. Neither Arya nor Bran had even as much as thought to go climbing on the mast, even before Mother said so, and it was easy to see they were expected to behave differently. Bran had even told Father as much, blinking back his tears, asking, _is it true that now you have to act like you're angry at me all the time?_

Mother had made a face at that, as if she didn't know whether she should laugh or cry, and Father had put his hands on Bran's shoulder and said that they would leave King's Landing for the North within a few days of arriving, and then no one would have to pretend anything anymore.

It was a sunny day when they first reached King's Landing, a warm morning as they all seemed to be, so far South. And they were travelling by sea – Sansa could not imagine how hot it must be in the hinterlands. She had gone above deck at dawn with Bran to watch the sun rise from the sea, playing at guessing where Braavos was, behind the horizon, and the Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh as well, and they were still above deck when they heard one of the men call, _Land!_

She refused to come down after that, standing in the same spot and noticing how the brown strip of land seemed to move closer and closer among the waves, and Robb had joined her by the time they could finally see the tall shape of the Red Keep, and the city below. Sansa got another good look as they entered Blackwater Bay, to the high walls of the city and the hills behind them. King's Landing was not as old or as grand as Bravos, and there was no stone monster guarding its harbor, but it would do.

As the ship started ascending the Blackwater, Sansa remembered something. "Do we have to ride to the Red Keep?"

Robb shook his head. "Ser Renly has arranged transportation. Some sort of carriage, the road to the Kept is large enough. Of course, it's not the best way to make an impression, but… "

He smiled in self-deprecation, and Sansa put a hand on his shoulder. "You needn't blame yourself. I would expect the court to know that we do not have horses in Braavos."

They stood like that for a while, staring at the stone walls looming above them, until the ship docked and Sansa felt Robb's chest move as he took in a deep breath.

"I guess we made it home," he said, and she smiled.

**VI. In which Sansa is a real Lady, and doesn't particularly enjoy it**

King's Landing stank like a latrine.

It was something Sansa hadn't imagined while seeing the city form the ship, but still something she should have expected. It was also incredibly crowded, and it took them more than an hour to make it to the Keep, a terrible hour of sweat and stench, and boredom making way to nervousness and then boredom again.

They found the Prince's own steward, a stern-looking, green-eyed man who bowed to Father and called him Lord Stark, and then they were shown to their quarters in the slate-roofed building Mother had called the Maindenvault, and Sansa felt extraordinarily glad when she realized that they were nowhere in the vicinity of the royal apartments, with the possible exception of the Mad King himself, who, Arya had snickered, was likely locked up in a tower somewhere.

Sansa had her own room for what might as well have been the first time since she had been four and Arya had turned two, and yet still it seemed nothing compared to the set of rooms the steward had given Mother and Father. Robb's room was bigger than hers as well, what with him apparently being _Father's heir_ and everything, and he seemed smug enough that Sansa _knew_ she would never hear the end of it.

They were to be received by the Prince in the Queen's Ballroom in the evening, and Mother and Father were to supper with the Prince and Princess in Maegor's Holdfast after that. The choice of location, Father said, meant that there would be few people in attendance, and the invitation to dinner suggested that it wouldn't take long.

Sansa was to wear the new gown for the evening, and she was about to go look for her mother to ask for help with the laces when there was a knock at the door and one of the Fortress's bedmaids came in, a young woman with brown eyes and hair some five or six years older than Sansa who said she had been sent to help her prepare for the evening.

Her name was Marica, and she must have realize how uneasy Sansa felt with letting a stranger help her bathe and dress, because she started talking to calm her down. She chatted of how Ser Aron Santagar had named Lady Ashara the Queen of Love and Beauty at the last tournament and how it was now fashionable for men at court to pin a rose on their doublets.

Marica did Sansa's hair then, up in some fancy twist she'd once seen Mother do, still talking and talking of people Sansa had never heard of before as though their names meant something, never asking a single question and, as Marica's chatter moved to Princess Cersei and how daring she had been in wearing a dress without a back, Sansa realized that her discomfort was gone.

"It'll be so grand, Lady Sansa," the young woman concluded, pinning Sansa's hair up. "To see the Prince, up close. He's so handsome, you'll see."

After she'd gone away, door closed once again, Sansa mused on how no one seemed to refer to the Prince Regent as _Prince Rhaegar_. Not even his own steward, she had noticed, everyone acting as if it were obvious whom they were talking about – and often it was. There were many princes in King's Landing, and princess, but only one ruled the kingdom. _The_ Prince.

_I wonder what he looks like_.

She had the opportunity to see it for herself two an hour later, standing between Robb and Arya in the middle of the ballroom. The Prince was handsome indeed, perhaps even better looking than Renly Baratheon, despite being older than Father. His silver hair seemed almost white next to his wife's darks locks, but his lilac eyes were those of an old man.

Princess Elia was small and slender woman, her gown a brilliant Targaryen red. Next stood her daughter, Rhaenys, who shared her mother's dark brown coloring and olive skin, and Rhaegar's two sons, with names so similar she would never remember which one as which. One of them was their cousin, Sansa knew; it must be the one who resembled Father. Rhaegar's siblings were also in line: his young sister, who looked of an age with Robb and could have easily passed for Rhaegar's _daughter_, and Viserys, with his blonde Lannister wife and their two children, whom she remembered were named Daena and Tommen.

There Kingsguard was there as well, all seven members, and Sansa found herself pondering the Mad King in his locked room, trying to decide who exactly was in charge to guard him, before deciding she did not much care.

There were others in the room; some people whose names Sansa knew and some whom she had never even heard of. The only nobles she could recognize were some of the members of the Small Council: the hand of the King, a man with red hair and bright eyes; the Master of Ships, who was Ser Renly's brother, and the Master of Laws who was brother to the Queen. The others she could not place and, truth be told, she did not particularly care to. _What a nightmare would be, _she though_t, living in King's Landing._ So many people to keep track of, and lord, ladies and Targaryens in every corner. _I wonder if Mother's brother is here as well…_

They all stood in the middle of the room as Father took his oath to the kingdom – to the Prince, truly, as no one even mentioned the King once. Prince Rhaegar then handed him a huge sword, at least as tall as Arya, which Mother had said belonged to the Starks, and Sansa idly wondered how long it had taken for the sword to be shipped from Winterfell to King's Landing, and who had been tasked with bringing it. _Are there northmen in the Red Keep? How would Father react?_

Father thanked the Prince for lifting the exile and Sansa knew that, for all his mistrust of the Targaryens, he was truly glad or the opportunity to be back in the Seven Kingdoms and, strangely, she had the feeling that Rhaegar seemed to think the same. The Prince's own speech was a short one, and then the whole affair was over, almost as soon as it had begun.

Knights and ladies started to shift and move, casting curious glances towards Mother and Father – and her and her siblings as well, Sansa realized. She found herself grasping Arya's arm in a strong grip.

"I hope you will do me and Elia the honour to join us for supper," she heard the Prince tell Father, and sent him a panicked look. _Now? What of us?_

"Of course, my Prince. The honor is mine." Father said, swiftly. "However, may I escort my family back to the Maidenvault beforehand?"

"There is no need of that," Princess Elia answered, smiling. "Rhaenys can do that easily enough, she has done it so many times, and so can the others. It would be good for your children as well, Lord Eddard; I do not believe they had the time to meet anyone yet."

_Of course not_, Sansa would have wanted to say. _You know fully well we only arrived this morning_. But there was nothing she could say, nothing Father could say, nothing but answer with a nod and a smile of his own.

"You do my family a great honor, Princess," he said, fully sounding as if he had meant it. And Sansa remembered back in Braavos, how Mother had promised, _no more Targaryens_.

It didn't seem so likely, not anymore.

* * *

_And as we wind on down the road,  
our shadows taller than our soul.  
There walks a lady we all know  
who shines white light and wants to show  
how ev'rything still turns to gold._

**VII. In which there **_**are**_** more Targaryens, and they all talk names**

She missed Robb.

It seemed to Sansa that they had been always together to share their worries when one of them felt apprehensive, ever since the day they had first received news of Father's pardon, on the night that felt like a lifetime ago.

Robb had already gone, however, escorted by soft-spoken, elegant Princess Rhaenys, with her purple gown and dark curls, and Bran as well, with silver-haired Princess Daenerys. The two girls had wanted to leave as soon as they had known from Robb about Rickon, whom Mother had left in their quarters, as he was too tired to attend and too old to be carried around all night.

_He might wake up scared, all alone in a strange room_, Princess Daenerys had coed, and Robb had sent her a grateful look.

Sansa and Arya were to be accompanied by the princes instead, thanks to some strange custom she could not quite see the point of – _we only need someone to show us the way, it doesn't need to be all _four_ of them!_ – and they had both taken their time, exchanging courteous words with every knight or lord who stopped to greet them.

By the time they made it out of the ballroom, Sansa was eager for some quiet. _Robb and Bran must already be in the Maindenvault_ _by now_.

Her escort was the older prince, the fair haired one, who had offered her his arm with a smile and a bow of his head. She took it, as Mother would have wanted her to, noticing just how much slower one had to walk while linked to someone else's arm. It was only after a moment that she realized with a wince that the person she was walking with would one day be the king of all Westeros.

"Lady Sansa, is everything well?" The prince inquired, managing to sound pleasant and interested at the same time, and Sansa had to repress a nervous giggle from escaping her mouth. It was all so unbelievable, ridiculous even, how in two moons she had gone from wandering through the fishmarket of Braavos to walking arm in arm with thee future king of the Seven Kingdoms who called her _Lady Sansa_.

But she wasn't about to tell _him_ as much, and wouldn't have known how to explain it even if she did, so she smiled and shook her head. "Yes, thank you."

After a moment she remembered she should have added, _My Prince_, but now it was too late and, besides, he probably hadn't even noticed the difference. She considered making some sort of conversation, before dismissing the idea. _What would we even talk about?_

Her knowledge of topics of conversation was limited to the brief exchange she'd had with Marica the bedmaid, and it was probably not that suitable for a prince's ear. There was also the fact that she still could not remember his name. _Why are all Targaryens named the same anyway? Rhaegar and Rhaenys, Daena and Daenerys…_ She imagined for a moment asking, _Excuse me, my prince, I do not seem to remember your name, _in the same polite way he'd asked if she was well, and barely contained another burst of laughter.

Behind her Arya seemed to be thinking the same thing, only talking to her own escort when he asked her something about their journey, and living in the Free Cities – he seemed to have a fascination with Tyrosh. _Well, he surely wouldn't ask of Braavos. Braavos hates dragons_.

Arya's answer was a clear and straightforward as she herself was. "I don't remember much of Tyrosh," she says, and Sansa noticed how she wasn't the only one forgetting to add a title to her answers. "And please don't call me _Lady Arya_, it is odd. I like Arya just fine."

Mother would _so_ not have liked that answer, but Sansa herself rather did – she only wished, with a pinch of envy, she had been as bold as her sister to say the same, and as young as she was to get away with it. To her great surprise both the princes seemed to like it as well, their laughter echoing loudly in the vast corridors of the keep.

"It that is the case," Sansa's escort intervened. "You may call me Aegon. And _him_," he added, pointing at his brother, turning to wink at Arya. "Jon. And I like Arya just fine as well, it's a very pretty name."

"Thank you," Arya answered, looking somewhat taken aback, and Aegon laughed again.

_So that's his name_.

"Jon?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at Aegon's younger brother, whom Father most definitely she did not remember being named Jon. _It's not like it's short for something..._

"That is how my family calls me," he said, sounding as if he had explained it half a hundred times. And he probably must have, but Sansa could see why people would be curious. "How my mother called me, before I was born; Father had never thought of choosing a boy's name for me." He rolled his eyes. "Elia especially likes it, she says it avoids confusion –"

"– And it does," Prince Aegon added, his voice full of mirth. He looked at Arya expectantly, as she laughed.

Sansa almost wanted to comment on that – it seemed odd to her that the Prince had been choosing only girl's names, hadn't Mother explained how most men wanted sons even when they already had an heir? – when she remembered exactly whom she was talking with, her father's sister's son, the reason why an entire kingdom had gone to war, the reason why Father and Mother had to leave. She didn't say a thing, and couldn't bring herself to laugh much anymore.

In spite of Sansa's own confused feelings, the conversation was much easier after that. The two princes traded quips and banters, with Arya their amused spectator, and even Sansa felt more comfortable.

Her sister was smiling when they finally reached her family's quarters, looking almost as content as she had been during their voyage to Pentos on the _Sister of the wind_. When they first approached the Maindenvault she even dared to ask Prince Aemon – Jon, he had insisted – if the Mad King was really locked up in a room somewhere.

"Well," he said, choosing his words carefully, dragging his answer. "I can guarantee he is not locked up _in here_."

Arya did her best not to delude him, looking suitable impressed, and Sansa knew she was going to repeat that piece of gossip to Bran and Robb as soon as she had the opportunity.

Sansa, for her part, found herself looking at him, noticed how much he truly looked like Father up close. Except for the attitude, she decided, the easy air of someone who's never had to worry about anything in his life. His grey eyes twinkle in the light of the torches and Sansa remembered something Mother told her, how the Mad King has grey eyes as well.

_Dark grey, almost black_, Mother's voice repeated in her mind, and shivered.

_Don't get scared like a little girl. _She firmly told herself. _It means nothing. Lots of people have grey eyes. Arya has grey eyes. _Father_ has grey eyes, as well, maybe his sister did, too?_

It meant nothing, she was sure, but she felt uneasy all the same. _We can leave soon, Mother said. _Father had met the Prince, sworn his oath. Two or three days, and they would go to Winterfell.

_And there are no dragons in Winterfell, only wolves_.

**VIII. In which various people get emotional**

They left indeed in two or three day_s_, as her parents had assured her. It truly was _two or three_ days, on a ship to a place called Saltpans, in the riverlands, for them all, while Father alone boarded another ship to White Harbor and the North.

Sansa hated that and, she could see, so did father. Especially, so did Mother. Sansa remembered when she was very little and they lived in Tyrosh or Myr, how Father would go away for weeks or months at the time, fighting for one city or the other, and how Mother would cry into the night for days after he left, when she thought they were asleep and could not hear her. _We're sad, too, Mother_, she would think. _You needn't hide if you want to cry_. She thought it silly at the time, but now she knew better. A lady does not cry.

Mother wasn't crying now, of course. She really needn't to – no one did, except for Rickon. Not even Bran, who could not remember what was it like with Father being away, had cried, but they still did not like it.

But Father had to go to Winterfell, which had been without a lord since Benjen Stark had died, and he had to go as soon as he could; while Mother had a family she had not seen in more than a decade, and she needed to go there as well. In the end they had decided to split, as she had heard Father tell Mother.

"It will be for the best," they both had explained to Sansa and the others on the day after their arrival in King's Landing. "This way you will have time to get to know the Seven Kingdoms as well as your Mother's family, and the people in Winterfell will have time to prepare for your arrival."

The people in Winterfell already had two months to prepare for their arrival, but Sansa had not said that. What Father likely meant was that _he_ needed time to get used to Winterfell again, and she wondered just exactly for how long Father and Mother had been planning this.

They had left King's Landing two days after their arrival, and the only thing Sansa had managed to see of the city, besides the harbor and the Red Keep, had been the Great Sept of Baelor. It was much bigger than the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea in Braavos, and much grander as well, made of marble and gold and crystal and, had they been willing to stay four days more, they could have heard the High Septon himself address the crowd, as he did every fortnight.

Mother had also arranged for a septa and a septon to be sent to Winterfell, for Father had promised he would have a sept built. Sansa remembered how melancholic and wistful he seemed to get every time he told her about his Northern gods, and was glad Father now had that back, too. She idly wondered what a weirwood would look like.

They had quite an odd road to travel, by ship to Saltpans and then riding to Riverrun following the river called the Red Fork, and then to Seagard to sail yet another ship, to a cove called Saltspear. It would take a ridiculous long time, Sansa mused, mostly because of the amount of riding involved. _As soon as we are settled in Winterfell, I'll ask Father to teach me how to ride well_. Though she would probably have to take turns, as Arya, and especially Robb, had already said the same thing.

On the day of their departure they were escorted to the harbor by some of the Prince's men, his very own household guards, which Mother said it was meant as an honor. Sansa, who could not quite appreciate the courteous behaviour of Prince Rhaegar toward a man he himself had exiled in the first place, didn't really know what to think.

They would be escorted to Riverrun as well, Mother had said on the ship, and then to Seagard, by Tully men. Sansa had been worried at first, asking if there was a bandit problem, but Mother had laughed and told her not to worry, it was simply a customary favour to offer

She also explained that they would be escorted to Winterfell from Saltspear by Stark men Father would sent, and only the odd feeling of realizing that _Father_ would have _people_ to send to meet them was enough to distract her from the annoyance of realizing that, from now on, she would be escorted by men everywhere she went. And, most important, the fact that Father would have the _time_ to get to Winterfell and send men while she was stuck in the riverlands, _on a horse_.

Eventually, the journey wasn't as dreadful as she had feared. There was mud, of course, and every sort of insects, and saddle plagues – which apparently she wasn't supposed to talk about, as it was most unbecoming of a young lady. Not the complaining, Sansa learnt, but talking about _saddle plagues_ was, especially in the hearing of Lord Tully's household men.

The Tully men were also the reason why Robb didn't complain, despite being allowed to, if he wanted. Instead, he looked at the easiness with which the men rode and at the swords they carried with a look that was quite close to envy. I am going to be as good as them in a year, you'll see, he told her, and Sansa had smiled. Of course he would; Robb managed to did anything he set his mind to.

Riverrun was beautiful, Sansa decided, perhaps not quite as big as the Red Keep but still grand, with its pale sandstone walls, rising tall from the waters. Mother had a small quiver when they saw it for the first time, the rivers shining under the sun, and when she averted her watery eyes to look at her saddle, Sansa thought she herself might cry.

Once they were in full sight of the walls they were met by yet another river, a man who came galloping as though he had a mob at his heels, who called Mother _Cat_ and hugged her, laughing and sobbing at the same time. Sansa found herself staring, a little, wondering for a moment what she was supposed to do before deciding that looking at Mother being this happy was enough.

Glancing around she noticed Robb and Bran both with a stupidly content look on their face, and she would have called them on it had not the Tully men been staring with the same expression. She exchanged an amused eye roll with Arya then, and turned back to Mother when she raised her voice to introduce them to her uncle Brynden Tully, who made his way to where they stood and looked at them, one by one.

He started at Sansa the longest time.

"You look just like your mother did at your age," he said, and laughed.

They spent the last part of the trip to Riverrun listening to Ser Brynden, whom Mother said was called the Blackfish. In fact, he was the only one talking. _You can tell us everything tonight when we can all listen, _he said_, and your children as well_.

He had joined the City Watch of King's Landing right after the war, he said, when Edmure had been fostered there. Mother already knew this, thanks to the rare letters they had exchanged through the years, but it was new to Sansa. Of Edmure, Mother's brother, he said that he hadn't married yet.

"How so?" Mother asked, curious. "He must have made many acquaintances in King's Landing."

"I have no idea," her uncle answered. "He should, but then again, I am the last person who should tell him to."

Of his brother, Lord Tully, Ser Brynden said he had been unwell lately.

"A summer chill, he will be well soon. He wanted to welcome you in my place, but Maester Vyman forbade him. Edmure wanted to come as well, but" and there he smiled, a fond, lenient smile. "I do believe the lad is nervous, and it's making him silly. You haven't seen each other in so long, and he was so young, he was probably afraid you wouldn't recognize him."

It _was_ silly, Sansa decided, once she'd had a good look at Edmure Tully. There was no mistaking his red hair, and she wondered if Robb would look like him, someday.

They met him in Riverrun's main courtyard, him men all lined up like Sansa herself and her family had done in the Queen's Ballroom their very first night in King's Landing. She tried to keep her back straight and her face composed, and act properly, but Ser Edmure didn't seem to have such qualms – he merely laughed and ran to embrace Mother very much like the Blackfish had. She told him something Sansa could not quite hear – some jape about his age, maybe, or about his fierce red beard – and he laughed even harder.

Lord Hoster was abed in his solar, and only Mother was allowed to enter.

"It would be too much," the Maester argued. "He is already coming to the feast tonight, he needs to be careful. You go in first, Lady Catelyn, the children can come later."

She did, and Ser Edmure told his steward to show them to their rooms before going into his father's solar as well. "I'll call you when your mother gets out," he promised.

Sansa's room in Riverrun was bigger than the one in the Maidenvault had been. She and Arya shared a whole set of quarters as big as their home in Braavos, and they had a bedmaid to themselves as well.

There was to be a feast for them in Riverrun, the young maid informed Sansa, and her talking of clothes remembered Sansa how she only had the one gown to wear, _I hope there won't be another feast after this while we stay here_, she thought, and idly wondered what Mother's family if she wore one of her Braavosi dresses.

She finally got to meet Lord Hoster shortly before they were to go to the feast, and he too commented on Sansa's resemblance to Catelyn. He himself had his daughter's bright blue eyes, which twitched when he talked and lighted up his whole face, and Sansa liked him immediately.

They were feasted in Riverrun's Great Hall, which was much bigger than the Queen's Ballroom in King's Landing but not, Mother informed her, as big as the Great Hall in Winterfell. She must have sensed Sansa's disquiet at the thought, for she smiled. "I stayed in Riverrun through the whole war," she confessed. "I have never been to Winterfell either.

Sansa had never known that, and she found it hard to believe. The North seemed to be such an important part of Father's story, of _who_ he was and, as close as he and Mother obviously were, it was odd to think that she did not know that side of him at all.

"So, you see," Mother continued. "We will see it together."

And Sansa had never loved her mother as much as she did in that moment, sat at the high table in Riverrun's Great Hall, all eyes on her.

"We will."

**IX. In which Sansa likes lemon cakes, no matter which universe she's in**

They spent ten days in Riverrun, ten days of sun and laughs and stories, ten days of swimming in the river and running in the godswood, and Sansa loved every minute of it.

_I was silly_, she thought, thinking back to how she had been nervous to meet her mother's family and would have rather gone straight to Winterfell with Father instead. She told Ser Brynden as much on the last day, sat on the green in the godswood, promising she would be back soon.

"The North is vast," he said, and it wasn't much of an answer. "And Winterfell is right in the middle of it, four hundred leagues from here."

He was carving a twig, the blade of his knife reflecting the light of the sun. It was a while before he spoke again.

"But we will see each other, that much is sure. Cat's sister Lysa will make the journey, and her husband is very fond of your father. I might go with them," he added, and she smiled in delight. "I've always wanted to see the North."

The Blackfish had spent the most time with Sansa during their stay in Riverrun. With Robb as well, of course, and with Arya and Bran, but they could always play together and Robb could always go with Edmure and his friends, leaving Sansa with Ser Brynden – Uncle Brynden, he had asked to be called – who still did not seem to mind much.

"But I will be coming back, I swear." She repeated, stubborn. The North might be as interesting and beautiful as people kept telling her, but there was something magical in the fortress among the waters. "Maybe this time Father will come as well. He wanted to."

"Did he."

Brynden kept his voice even and his eyes on his lap, making notch after notch on the wood, and Sansa raised her eyebrows. She had never given much thought to the relationship between Father and the Tullys – after all, the marriage had been Lord Hoster's idea, Mother had said.

_A daughter for an army_.

She pushed that thought away. "They love each other very much," she said instead. "Mother loves him."

"I am sure she does," her uncle answered, and Sansa felt heat rush to her face

"She does. She would have left him if she didn't, and I wouldn't be here at all."

Brynden didn't say anything, and Sansa knew what he must be thinking.

"You don't understand. The Free Cities… it is different from here. She wouldn't have had to stay with him if she hadn't wanted to, believe me. I know things, I'm not stupid."

He laughed at that. "No, that you are not. Like your mother…"

Brynden took a breath. "Well, I'm truly happy for her, then. Truly. Cat, of all people, deserves it." He gave Sansa a smile, and went to spar in the yard.

Robb went to spar in the yard as well, for hours every day, under the watchful eye of Ser Brynden and the men of the garrison. He had been shy at first; ashamed of his own inexperience, until Arya had pointed out that he would likely never see the men at Riverrun again for years, at least. _You might look like an idiot now, but it's better than looking like an idiot at Winterfell_, she had said, and Robb had smiled.

_And at least you have held a blade before…_ Sansa had heard a jealous note in her sister's voice, remembering how Arya had always been fascinated by the small dirk Father had gave Robb to carry around when he had started working for old Tasco, loading his boats on the pier. She had wanted one as well, Sansa remembered, and Father told her she would have when she was older.

_Had we stayed in Braavos_, Sansa thought, _Father would have given one to me as well, by now_.

And when Arya had begged Ser Brynden and Ser Desmond Grell, the master-at-arms, to please show her how to hold a practice sword, Sansa had met their bewildered looks with her best suffering gaze and an eye roll of her own and asked Ser Desmond to please teach her as well, so that she might play at swords with Arya and keep her away from the rest of the men.

And he had, that day and the next, and Sansa had learnt first-hand that practice swords had lead in them, and holding one tight, for hours on end, was nowhere as easy as most knights made it look. Arya, for her part, had loved every minute of it.

There were two more feasts in Riverrun during their ten days of stay, one on the very last night, and another one on the day Marq Piper came to visit, kiss mother's hand, and take away his good friend Edmure for two days. Edmure and his friends reminded Sansa of Tasco's sons in Braavos, who liked to laugh long and hard and always tried to get Robb to come along on their adventures.

Edmure's friends seemed to do the same, in truth, to _corrupt him_, as Brynden had said, half jesting and half meaning it. To that, Robb had answered that Edmure's friends likely only wanted to ask him whether he had ever seen a Braavosi courtesan, causing Edmure himself to spit in his cup and Brynden to cast a meaningful glace Sansa's way.

"Do not worry, uncle," she had said. "Robb has never seen a courtesan up close."

"I have though," she had added after a moment, remembering the day she had gone to the seamstress. _And Mother has as well_, she had wanted to add, but Ser Desmond's face was already red enough.

Mother had another new gown made for her on the occasion of Edmure's feast for Ser Marq, a purple one that was woollen instead of silken, one she could wear in Winterfell as well. Sansa took the opportunity to ask for breeches as well, to ride in, and Mother sent her an amused glance.

"_Please_," Sansa told her, fervently.

She had her breeches, four pairs, delivered from Edmure's own hands on the day they left, together with a leather bag.

"What is that?" She asked, curious.

"Oh, lemons. I told Father that you seem to like our lemon cakes well enough," he answered, grinning, and Sansa blushed. _I do_. "Dried ones, I'm afraid, fresh lemons would never make it to Winterfell, but still…"

Sansa had never expected Edmure Tully to pay attention to such a thing. "Thank you," she told him, slowly. "I appreciate it..."

And she clutched the small bag all the way to Seagard.

**X. In which everyone lives happily ever after, for a while**

The North was as vast and cold as everyone said.

Sansa had learnt as much two days at after leaving Saltspear, as the harsh wind sweeping mercilessly under the coats Mother had insisted they all brought from Braavos and the pelts Lord Mallister had gifted them with.

"You get used to it, m'lady," one of the Winterfell men told her, rather cheerfully. His name was Harwin, and he was perhaps ten or so years older than Robb, witty and jaunty. He had been the one to tell Sansa not to worry; it wasn't much different than Braavos. _Isn't Braavos just south of White Harbor? I bet it gets cold there, too_, he had said, and Sansa had nodded. _It snows in Braavos, sometimes_, she had answered, and he laughed. _Only sometimes?_

"It gets better as well," he was saying now. "It's less windy in the hinterland."

Lord Mallister had said as much when they had been in Seagard, after greeting Mother warmly like most of the riverlands lords they had met all seemed to. They had only stayed in Seagard half a day, and Mallister had apologized profusely for not having the opportunity to hold a feast, asking Mother to please accept his gifts instead.

They wouldn't stop again until they reached Winterfell, and Sansa was glad. There weren't many villages in the Barrowlands, but Mother was not about to lengthen their road just to ask for hospitality from northern lords she had never even met before.

She hadn't said as much in front of the men, of course, but she had asked after Father as soon as she'd had the opportunity. He seemed to be doing well enough, Harwin had said. Another of the men, Wyl, had explained that Father had made it to White Harbor in a fortnight, and had been greeted warmly by Lord Manderly. They had all liked Lord Benjen well enough, Wyl had been quick to say, smallfolk and nobles alike, but he had been only a child when he'd become lord, and they had never forgotten the one they had gone to war with.

_Even if they lost? _

On the eighth day, Sansa decided that the Barrowlands were beautiful.

One small hill after the other, nothing to stop her gaze from staring at the horizon, miles and miles away in every direction; it was as though she were at sea. It snowed that day, a delicate brush of white that melted as soon as it touched the ground, but it melted in her hair as well, and on her nose, and it was still enough to make her eyes shine in delight.

She threw her hood back and laughed.

"Mother," she called. "Isn't it _beautiful_?"

The men from Winterfell all shook their head and grinned and said that it was nothing more than a splash, not even a real summer snow, but to her, it was enough.

For now, it was enough.

Sansa came to love the North in those weeks of traveling, as fiercely and completely as she had never loved anything before but her family. She loved every corner of it, every village they entered, every mile they rode, and every town and forest she hadn't gotten to see yet, because one day she would.

It was better than Riverrun, she decided, for the riverlands were so green and pleasant and rich, and everyone could love Riverrun – who wouldn't? But the North wasn't for everyone, that much had been made clear to Sansa early on, and she loved it the more for that.

It was even better than Braavos, the Secret City the singers sang about, the grandest city in the world, and everyone knew how magnificent and alluring it was. No one ever sang about the North, and Sansa decided she quite liked it this way. It was even older than Braavos, even grander, and so few people would ever know how truly wonderful it all was. _The Secret Kingdom_, she thought, and laughed to herself.

They sighted the Winterfell one day just after dawn. It was huge and ancient, grey banners hovering in the wind, the walls and towers rising from above the twinkle of the early morning fog, and it truly looked like a dream.

She was smiling as they approached, more than she ever had in her entire life, a full grin she could see reflected on Arya's face, but she truly didn't need to. Bran seemed awestruck, eyes wide in wonder, and she really wanted to have a look at Mother's face, hoping she would like it, hoping she would be as happy as she deserved to, and more. As for Robb, he had on a small, content smile, which somehow conveyed even more emotions than Arya's wolfish grin did.

Sansa could pinpoint exactly the moment when the people in Winterfell noticed them approaching, saw the movements on the walls and the gate opening, and a single, lone rider coming out.

He had grown a beard since King's Landing, Sansa noticed, and his clothes were different than the ones she was used seeing him in, but still he was_ Father_, and he was _here_; and she suddenly realized just how much she had missed him, how odd it had been not to see him every morning, and now they were all together once again, and it didn't matter anymore.

The men approached to meet him and he dismounted, walking the last few steps, and Sansa stayed to watch with a stupid smile on her face as Mother did the same, and hugged and kissed him the way she used to do when he came home back in Tyrosh, tired and bloodied and still alive.

Sansa made her way to Robb and grasped his hand as they both looked to the castle in the distance.

"Now," she whispered into his hear, smiling. "_Now_ we are home."

* * *

**NOTE:** This was written for a kinkmeme prompt, and it's now meant (hopefully) as a sorta-prequel to a longer, actually chaptered story, set around AGOT and dealing with a _real_ storyline as opposite to, well, culture shock. The sequel is still being written and won't be posted before this autumn, so, if there's anything you'd like to see in it, tell me and I'll try to weave it in.

If you're up to it, drop me a line and tell me what you thought of this story; if you're interested in reading the sequel, just follow this one, and I'll add a new chapter with a note when the new story will be up. Thanks so much for reading!


	2. Sequel's up!

Hello there,

I just wanted to let you know that the sequel's up - it's called West of Eden, it's on my profile page.

Thank you again for reading, reviewing and following this story, you're all awesome!


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